New Black Panthers offer $10K bounty for Zimmerman

The New Black Panther Party is calling for a $10,000 bounty on the head of George Zimmerman, the Florida neighborhood watch captain who shot and killed an unarmed teenager last month.

“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” the Black Panther leader Mikhail Muhammad said Saturday at a rally in Sanford, Fla., where Trayvon Martin was killed Feb. 26, according to Fox News.

Zimmerman has claimed he shot Martin in self-defense, but the New Black Panthers are calling for mobilization of 10,000 black men to capture Zimmerman, who has gone into hiding, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

According to the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the New Black Panthers “is a virulently racist and anti-Semitic organization whose leaders have encouraged violence against whites, Jews and law enforcement officers.” The group was founded in Dallas in 1989 and believes black Americans should have their own nation, according to the SPLC.

Zimmerman shot Martin as he returned to his father’s house from a store where he had bought candy. Zimmerman told a 911 dispatcher that Martin was acting suspicious and told police that he was attacked by Martin. Sanford police say they were advised by prosecutors that they did not have enough evidence to charge Zimmerman.